I have concluded another open house; well it was the same one from last week.  I still had flyers (from a third party money lender) left over from the last showing.  I called the listing agent for permission to hold the home open for the weekend.  I started making calls Tuesday, by Friday I had gotten a call from a temp that was covering the office while the listing agent was out of town.  The ironic part of this was that the out of town trip was to a motivational speaker that was/will show the listing agent how to maximize its efforts in the current "down" market.  I say ironic because the person that was left behind covering the phones had not a clue as to what was to be done during the time the listing agent was absent.  I wonder how much business was lost due to a clueless person effectively taking over the listing agents operations?  I am learning that you have to build a "pipeline" in order to grow your real estate business.  Its not easy or cheap to keep this "pipeline" producing business, another fact I have learned is that this production is fragile and that I would NEVER entrust it to anyone that was "less" in the field than myself.  I hope I don't sound hard for my statements.